Friday, October 28, 2011

Festive Friday to you all, my little gingersnaps! Mr. G just found out that the movie he was going to work on pushed AGAIN. (which is why we took this last minute trip to Oahu, Hawaii) Since he just found out he's off next week as well, we decided, what the heck... why don't we extend our trip a few extra days and fly to the Big Island and see volcanoes, and take another helicopter tour? #yesweareinsane

The plane reservations have been changed. Our pet sitters have agreed to feed our 101 pets a few extra days. We are SERIOUSLY INSANE PEOPLE.

Meanwhile, the kids are getting some seriously awesome hands-on homeschooling while we are here. Before we left, we were learning about volcanoes and wind/rain erosion in science. They got to see evidence of wind/rain erosion and volcanoes from the helicopter tour we took earlier. They've been able to study volcanoes & lava at a museum in Oahu, learn about the Polynesians, study the stars and current planets in the sky from Hawaii, and even learn how the ancient Polynesians navigated the ocean using stars as their guides.

Today we do a 4 hour tour of the entire island, and end up at the Polynesian Cultural Center, where they will be able to learn about and experience the different cultures from all the islands the Polynesians settled. Saturday we go to Pearl Harbor, and they get to see first hand the place & event they learned about in History.

Sunday we fly to the Big Island where we will get to see active volcanoes, and even take a 2 hour helicopter tour of the island and volcanoes. We will get to the coast to see where the lava flowed into the ocean and study geology/nature through state parks until we fly home Wednesday and resume our regular homeschool schedule with books and worksheets. It's times like these when I love that we homeschool.

Soooo... I will be taking a hiatus from the funny until we return home to Los Angeles. Perhaps I will share a few photos from our day. Maybe I'll just hang with the family or read in our down time. Who knows?! Here are a few photos from yesterday, when we visited the Bishop Museum.

We attended two planetarium shows. I love how they ask you to turn off your blinking shoes. Uh, if you find out how to do that, please let me know and I'll gladly do that to my daughter's freaky light-up sketchers. (which thankfully she was not wearing yesterday)

Just outside the planetarium, they had this awesome globe, that with a push of a button could change to any rotating planet you want, plus sun or moon. But one button changed it to this WITH SOUND EFFECTS. That's no moon. But that is one awesome planetarium.

This was the outside of the planetarium.

The grounds and buildings at this place were beautiful. If you ever go to Oahu, you gotta check out this museum.

Inside the Science Building they had a huge, 3-story faux volcano. You could go inside and study it from the inside (including pushing a button to give you realistic sulfur smell -yay! *shakes head no*). They had samples of every kind of lava, based on how quickly it flowed & cooled. Lots of hands-on exhibits. This was the 3rd story tippity top of the volcano.

We attended the lava demonstration, where we learned all about the different kinds of lava (and got to touch them all) as well as the different kinds of volcanoes and eruptions. Then the lady made lava and poured it out. (afterwards, she took museum postcards and caught the edges on fire from the lava, and handed them out as souvenirs)

I found this in the museum gift shop. #hilarious But if you think I would purchase that, add soda to the mentos just to create a 25 foot soda geyser over my head, you're even crazier than I.

Last, but not least, a beautiful flower I spotted in the parking lot as we were leaving. And yes, these were all taken with my new iPhone4S.